Another Tale of Hitomoshi
by QuietDragon
Summary: From the perspective of a Ghost who does not realize she is one, a tale of house fires, broken pottery, and the way home. No pairings, but it could easily be read as Flickershipping (Nobori/Ingo x Chandela/Chandelure). One-shot.


**Opening Author's Notes:** I left this story only half-finished for a very long time, but I finally got the drive to complete it. This story uses Japanese names, but that shouldn't be too much of a problem since the only names used are these:

Hitomoshi = Litwick

Nobori = Ingo

Kudari = Emmet

... and yeah, that's pretty much it. Easy enough, right? The only other thing worth mentioning is that Kudari calls Nobori "Nobori-niisan" which pretty much means "big brother Nobori," but that sounds silly if you write it over in over in English, so I opted for keeping it in Japanese.

I hope you'll enjoy this one-shot!

* * *

The walls are splashed with red, orange, and yellow as though my entire world had, in just one short moment, become the canvas of a painter gone mad. The air is heavy and smells of burning paper and forest fires.

I am small and frightened, but the space around me grows tighter as I'm forced back into a corner by the quickly spreading flames, crisscrossing into the room and quickly making a smoldering mess of the sliding doors.

I shut my eyes, thinking I will meet the same end as that door, as this place, and there will be nothing left but soot and ash.

I am small and white in a world of spirits. I think that I was taken here by mistake; maybe someone took me here to save me from the fire; maybe I fled here and forgot the way home. I can still hear the fire crackling, but I cannot see it. Left and right, only more spirits. All the spirits are very large, even the children tower over me, laughing as their balls like boulders nearly run me over. I think that I am in a world populated by giants or perhaps I have shrunk.

I try to ask one child, who looks younger than me when she crouches down to pick up her ball, allowing me to see her face, even if she's so much larger and taller when she stands that I cannot see past her knees without toppling over. I try to ask her about the fire: "hi?" _Fire?_

"There! On your head, silly!" the little girl points and laughs, before she runs away.

I am confused and, wondering if this is some sort of joke, try to reach up to feel my head but my arms are too short to reach. Little white nubs with no fingers that cannot reach past my uneven hair.

This _must_ be a joke. How can I possibly have a fire on my head and not get burned?

So, I continued to search for the fire. Maybe I will find my family this way.

The only creatures of a reasonable size, like mine, are also white: white like short, fat candles with blue-purple flames lighting their wicks.

Yellow eyes peer out, one from every face, the other side obscured by hair like melted wax. I think that my face must look like theirs, but I am not one of these strange creatures! I am human.

But, the sound of fire accompanied me everywhere...

"Hi?" is all I can manage.

They blink and exchange looks, before pointing nubby hands up at their flames.

'_No, not that, is there no other fire? Have you seen a burning house? I am looking for my home._' These are the words I wish to say, but all I can manage is this: "hihito-moshi? Hitomoshiihi? Hihi moshi hito."

The cluster of candle-creatures laugh, understanding the strange language I spoke without learning: '_There are no burning houses here._'  
'_The home you know is gone._'  
'_Your roots burned in that fire. Give it up; there's nowhere for you to return to._'

I am disheartened by their words; the fire spread so quickly, it _was_ possible that it had claimed my entire family... but still, I insist on finding my home. Maybe someone else had made it out of that fire alive, run off somewhere, and still lived nearby, longing to hear from me, as I am longing to hear them?

When I tell them this, hey stop looking amused and instead look at me with pity.

'_We will go back to the world of the living soon to feed. We are hungry. If you want to go back, you must come with us. Hitomoshi are too young to travel alone._'

'_Hitomoshi?_' I ask.

'_That is what you are. That is what we are,_' one of them replies.

'_That is not my name. I am not Hitomoshi, I am human._'

'_Then, what is your name?_'

I cannot remember.

'_What is your name?_' the one who asked me first repeats the question.

'_I do not know._'

They are satsfied with my answer. '_That is proof you are one of us. We have all forgotten; we are all lost spirits. We are Hitomoshi and so are you. We will be your family now._'

'_I will come with you. Please take care of me,_' I say it, but do not accept them as family.

There must have been a mistake. I will accompany them until I return to my home. There, I will find my family and everything will be as it should be.

I follow the group of Hitomoshi until they come to a strange creature that looks like a ball filled with fire, with a wide rimmed hat of iron and long, curling iron arms. It has yellow eyes too and I think it looks like an oil lantern.

It creates a portal and we finally live the cold, misty place where spirits dwell. The air is warm and fresh here. It smells like trees and rain. The sun is shining, but it's not too hot, and I move along the brown dirt and past the thick tree trunks.

'_Where are you going?_' they call out to me.

'_I will search for my old home! Just outside this forest, I think that's where it is..._'

'_We already told you..._' one trails off.  
'_You'll get lost if you wander too far! You won't be able to go back!_'

I should have listened.

Where I expected to find my peaceful little village, surrounded by grassy hills, vendors touting their wares, and farmers working their land, I found instead flat, grey land like stone stretching further than I could see, obliterating the grassy hills I remembered; large, colourful metal roaring; tall poles topped with obnoxiously bright street lights that blotted out even the stars' celestial glow with their artificial light, so what of one small, misplaced candle's light?

I continue my lonely journey, hoping that I might see a familiar face or meet someone who will tell me what became of my old village; did everyone move away? Did the fire claim more than just my family?  
A long stretch of time passes until I see a person walking. He is a giant too, but he wears strange clothes like a foreigner. I barely voice my question before he looks down, sees me, and quickly walks away.

"Stay away!" he shouts as he leaves.

I fall onto the hard, grey ground, startled by his large, leather-bound feet slamming the ground and nearly trampling me and watch as he disappears.

I think these giants are very strange. They resemble men, much taller and bigger than the ones in my village, but they are so cowardly. They are more like kokeshi dolls: no more than elongated, wooden, imitation-men maneuvered by easily frightened children. Easily knocked down.

As the night grows darker and more of the garish lights blink into life, I hide away behind a foul-smelling, hollowed-out, metal tree-trunk to avoid the cold.

I shiver and the fire crackles more loudly. I think the fire is growing larger. I can see the firelight, purple-blue like the Hitomoshi's, reflected just above my head on the metal I stand beside. I step to the right and the glow moves one step to the right. I take one step to the left and the glow also moves one step to the left. It is always just above where my head should be.

I step closer to the metal, the reflected light focusing as I come near. With my short, stubby hands, I clean the metal until I can see my face. I feel like a fool.

I am certainly one of them.

I understand now that this is why those Hitomoshi crowded together: not only are they too weak to travel alone, but for want of a family.

It has been so long since I parted ways with them, that I do not think I will find them even if I return to the forest we arrived in.

I am alone, cold, and hungry. I lost both the family I once had and the family I could have had.

I will the flame to grow, to chase away this cold, and to burn away this loneliness.

And it does.

It is warm enough for me to sleep...

I have stopped keeping count of how many people I ask about my village. The adults all treat me with all the welcoming ordinarily reserved for a murderer and the children are quickly carried away by fear-stricken parents.  
I do not know why I continue to ask them. If they talk to me, all they ever say is something about how I will lead them to destruction or prey upon their souls. They repeat this lie so often that I think I might start to believe it. I am still hungry and I do not know what a Hitomoshi is supposed to eat.

I have discovered that the metal tree trunks are full of discarded things, but there are also scraps of food! They are giants and for them, this must be a very small amount, but for me, it is plenty!

It does not look very appealing, but it is something.

Perhaps it is only because of my hunger, but the food does not taste as bad as the metal tree-trunk smells.

I think I overate. I am dizzy and feverish, unable to get up for most of the day.

Even through the haze of sickness, I can make out the sounds around me. Everything is too loud when I only want it to be quiet, but I overhear something excited that makes me forget about my insides churning and my burning skin.

I heard the name of my village! There are people past my corner, talking of a festival that will soon take place there.

I lift my head, little arms trembling as they try to hold me up. I cannot see very well in the darkness that stretches too far ahead from my small, irregularly burning flame to cast its light. But I can still hear them...

A festival in three days? I will surely see the vendors moving there to prepare! I will follow them then, I decide.

Content with my simple plan, I try to sleep off my sickness, hoping I will be well by the time the festival approaches.

-

I walk carefully through the sea of strangers, following the lantern-lit procession. I dodge the endlessly repeating rain of wooden sandals, knocking the ground with a familiar sound that would be comforting if it weren't so terrifyingly loud and powerful, like rolls of thunder from above and earthquakes from below for such a small creature.

After what seems like a thousand years of avoiding a stampede and, at one point, narrowly missing getting hit by a piping hot dumpling, still newly cooked, I reach the end of the sea and make my way down a familiar path, mercifully preserved in its original state. I am grateful for this body, now, because I am my own candle, shining a path to my old village.

But there is no village, only a strange building made of stone slabs, mostly covered in earth. There is a gap and I wonder if they've taken to hiding underground. Is this why I cannot find them?

Again, I am happy to have such a small body which fits so easily into the gap and I spread my firelight to investigate. But when my firelight washes my surroundings with a cool, purple glow, there are more stones, carefully arranged. It smells familiar, but not in the way I expect it to: it smells wet and muddy, like earth after a spring rain. It smells like a graveyard and looks like one too.

For some reason, it does not break me.

Strangely, I don't feel sad. I think I might be broken, like a clay pot that's filled too quickly, too hotly, so it cracks and holds nothing. I must have been overladen, so now I can't carry anymore sadness.

It's better than sadness, but I wonder if I can be mended. Maybe if I filled myself up with something else...

I leave the tomb and look back at the forest with tired eyes, but I'm surprised to see two humans. One, I nearly could not see, except for his head: he is very pale, with hair like moonlight. He looks too young to be that grey. But he is dressed in dark colours and I cannot see the rest of him in the darkness. He is followed by someone who looks just like him, but dressed in a yukata that's garishly bright. I wonder if it's a woman's kimono and if he wore it by mistake. He looks a bit foolish, wearing a mask on the side of his head, like a child, with hands full of sweets.

I wonder if they're foreigners intruding on my land, stealing what little is left behind of my human life, and consider filling myself with their spirits.

I cool my flame and approach quietly. I cannot cast illusions yet, so I have to hide behind plants, stones, and mounds of dirt as I make my way.

I catch parts of their conversation: the one in dark clothes is chiding his brightly-dressed double for annoying the dead with his footsteps. I stop a little longer to listen.

"Sorry!" he doesn't sound very sorry to me, but I don't think he means to cause offense; I thnk he might just be very dim.

"You really are something..."

"Why do you say that, Nobori-niisan?"

So the darkly-dressed one is named Nobori and he's the older brother. But, they look just alike. Are they twins? Maybe I should feed on Nobori first; if his little brother with the childish way of speaking is as slow as he seems, I think I could do it before he notices and thinks to run away.

"One would think that you would have lost that energy after all of that dancing, Kudari."

"If that's what you really think, Nobori-niisan, I'll be sad! It's like you don't know me at all!"

I'm close enough now to see that they're both wearing kimono. They look so different, but they dress in kimono, danced at the festival to welcome returning ancestor spirits, and are now here at my old home? Why are these strange outsiders doing all of this?

"No, I did not expect it, not really. One could only hope, Kudari."

The one called Nobori smiles at his brother in a teasing sort of way, while Kudari looks too happy to take his threat seriously, and I think that they are fun to watch, these strangely familiar strangers. Maybe I will watch them for a little while longer before I feed.

"So, visiting graves is next, huh?" Kudari still sounds silly, but he's a little bit quieter now.

"Of course."

They are here to visit the graves too? If they were outsiders who came to have fun at the festival, that would be one thing, but to do everything else too... that was going too far! Whose ancestors do they think they're greeting?!

I am starting to feel like I shouldn't feed on them. Maybe I like them too much. I decide I've had enough of watching them and that I should finish this quickly.

I go as fast as I can towards them, when they have their backs turned, crouching to offer food.

In my clumsiness, I trip and snap a twig. To make things worse, I can't help making a small sound in pain.

When I open my eyes again, I'm lying on the ground and both heads have turned to look my way. They're staring and I'm sure they noticed me.

"Moshimoshi," I say weakly.

I don't want to hear screaming right now, but I'm expecting it, so I wait for the sound.

But it never comes. Instead, Nobori stands up, with a piece of food, and walks over to me. I try to get up, but I don't have enough time to get unstuck from under the knotted twigs before he's crouching over me, staring at me with such harsh eyes. To my surprise, he removes the twigs, very gently, and lifts me up and then gives me the food that's almost too big for my small hands to carry.

"Ah! Nobori-niisan, isn't that food for the dead? You'll be cursed if you eat it before the spirits have their fill."

He looks back at his brother while I struggle to carry the food in my shock. It's clean, still warm, and smells good.

"No, I won't be. I am offering it to a fellow spirit."

He looks back at me and a corner of his mouth lifts in a small smile, before he brings his large hand down in front of me. "I will hold it for you until you finish. Take your time."

Is this a trick? Did he treat me with kindness and give me the food only to take it away? But his words were so sincere and filled me with a sense of belonging that like a silly child, I trusted him and put the food back in his hand.

I broke off small pieces to eat and he didn't move away until I was finished. He was very quiet and patient. When I looked up at him again, after finishing, those cold eyes looked so much kinder.

"Nii-san..." his brother sounds worried. "Hey, isn't that enough? It's not gonna be happy until it gets your soul too!"

Those words bother me now and I grab onto his fingertips with my small hands. '_Please don't leave me alone!_' I want to cry out, but all that comes out is this: "hitoshishi... himoshi!"

He looks at me for a long moment and I think he must have understood the meaning behind my words, because he lifts me gently into that hand that fed me and keeps me close.

"So be it."

"Ehhh?! That's crazy! You're always checking safety, how's a spirit-eating ghost not a violation of safety regulations?!"

I curl up comfortably against his chest, warmed by the closeness. I think that if it was heat that broke my clay pot heart, this warmth would be the heated silver needed to mend it.

I want to stay forever like this.

"Pokemon can be trained, Kudari. Moreover, I think that this Hitomoshi prefers sweets. If you feel the need to worry, worry about it eating your share."

"T-that's not fair!"

The seriousness of the conversation is gone and now, they sound funny again. But, trained? Does that mean he'll keep me, forever, just like this? I won't have to wander anymore?

"It is much too late for that, Kudari. I am afraid you've missed your stop. This is Hitomoshi's decision to make. Will you depart at this station or remain on board?"

He is using too many strange words, but I think I can understand him, just like he understood me. He's asking me if I want to stay, right?

"Nobori-niisan, I really don't think Hitomoshi will understa—"

"Moshi!" I happily agree, before Kudari can finish. '_I will follow you forever, Master Nobori._'

The clay is set with silver and I am no longer small, white, or scared, now I am sturdy, black, and strong, at home in a world of steel.

* * *

**Closing Author's Notes: **I hope you enjoyed it! Please review it if you have the time, I'd love some feedback!


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